What is the makeup of the population of New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward?
New Orleans East is about 80 percent Black, 10 percent white and 10 percent Vietnamese. The Ninth Ward is 70-80 percent Black and 20-30 percent white. The government didn’t flood the white section. The Ninth Ward breaks down into the Upper and Lower Ninth Ward. In the Lower Ninth Ward, no rebuilding has happened. The city wants to make the area an industrial park. The people who used to live there are displaced around the country. One of the highest rates of homeownership of African Americans in the country was right there. Most people were working poor, but they were working. Only about 8 percent of the area was rental units. Before the hurricane, there were 12,000 people there. Now, the population is around 400. They could have easily given people trailers to put by their homes like they did in Shelmet and St. Bernard Parish. In those places, 60-70 percent of the people worked in the petroleum industry. The government made sure they had everything they needed to recover. The governme
